Filling up the supermarket trolley (levels 3 – 4+)
Context for learning
In this activity students use the internet to find out the cost of grocery items as they try and select a week’s worth of supermarket items for their household.
Students have a budget of $200
The purpose of this activity is to highlight financial thinking to students and provide them with an understanding of the key financial messages:
 We need to be financially responsible.
 We may make different financial decisions from those made by someone else because we have different preferences or circumstances.
 Financial planning is important for personal and business financial success.
Learning areas
Financial Capability Progressions
English, The arts, Health & PE, Languages, Mathematics, Science, Social sciences,
Money
Technology
 Use coins and notes for transactions and calculate correct
change.
Learning outcomes
Budgeting and financial management
Students will be able to:
 Create a simple budget for an activity or event, prioritising
 compare the prices of groceries using the internet and select items that suit the
'needs' and 'wants'.
needs and preferences of their family
Setting financial goals
 write a shopping list for the supermarket that meets a budget of $200.
 Set a financial goal as part of planning a project or activity and
identify the steps needed to attain it.
Spending
 Explore spending choices for a given amount of money and
recognise that peoples’ spending choices differ.
 Discuss the concept of getting value for money when spending.
Key competencies
Key competencies
Thinking
Generating, identifying and assessing opportunities: thinking about a range of new
financial opportunities and seeing if they are good ideas.
Relating to others
Being fair and responsible: taking ownership of your financial responsibilities and
decisions while being mindful of how they will affect others.
Participating and contributing
Planning and organising: setting financial goals, establishing budgets, establishing a
timeline, making decisions, etc.
Being flexible and dealing with change: adapting to unexpected difficulties when
carrying out financial plans and making new decisions that provide the best outcomes
for you and others.
Using language, symbols and texts
Collecting, organising and analysing information: gathering financial and other
applicable information, and then making sense of it to support good financial decision
making that stands the test of time.
Resource requirements
 Newspaper article from Sunday Star Times, 27th April, 2008, page A6
 Internet access
 Shopping list template
Values
Innovation, inquiry, and curiosity
Thinking creatively, critically, and reflectively to:
 set and achieve personal financial goals
 analyse and solve financial problems.
Teaching and learning sequence
1. The teacher reads a newspaper article to the students about the rising cost of groceries – see attached article from the Sunday Star Times. The teacher
explains to the students that they are going to research the cost of grocery items and select a range of items to meet the needs of their entire family for a
week with a budget of, for example, $200.
2. The teacher sets up a quick ‘information’ hunt activity using different supermarket websites. The ‘information’ hunt includes questions such as: How
much is 1kg of new potatoes at Supermarket X? What is the cheapest brand of toothpaste that I can buy at Supermarket Y? What is the cost of a 320g tin
of baked beans at each supermarket? This activity is intended to allow students to familiarise themselves with the layout of each website and to begin to
understand the varying costs of grocery items.
3. The teacher and students establish some common requirements for the supermarket shopping challenge. The requirements may include: shopping list
includes ingredients for 5 main meals; shopping list has at least 3 different types of fruit; shopping list has 4 sanitary products included; shopping list has
enough bread and milk for the week, etc. Students may need to talk with their parents to establish the required quantity of particular items, e.g. number
of bread loaves, litres of milk, grams of mincemeat, etc.
4. The students brainstorm a list of items that they would like to include on their shopping list. They then search for the different items on the specified
websites and record the prices of each item.
5. Students begin to make decisions about what grocery items they will purchase for the week while considering the shopping requirements listed at step 3.
They calculate the overall costs and adapt their shopping list to fit the allocated budget.
6. Students write a final shopping list with the prices listed alongside each item.
7. Students share their shopping lists with the class and describe what meals they will be able to cook with their grocery items.
NB: The teacher could write a newsletter to parents explaining this taster and starter. The newsletter could encourage parents to let their children take control of
the grocery shopping for a week using the shopping list that they have generated at school.
Reflective questions for discussion
1. Students reflect on the decisions that they made when compiling a shopping list for their family. How easy or difficult was it to stick to the budget of
$200?
2. Do you think $200 buys a lot of groceries? Or not a lot?
3. What items did you want but could you not afford to buy?
4. Did you find that some items were more essential than others to include on the grocery list? Which items could be described as ‘needs’? Which items
could be described as ‘wants’?
5. Why do you think that there are price differences between grocery items that are the same product with a different brand name, eg: Kiwi ice-cream,
Movenpick ice-cream and Tip Top ice-cream? Why would some people pay a higher price for a particular brand of product?
6. What key financial messages can we write for our display wall?
Acknowledgement:
Sunday Star Times
April 27, 2008
A6 Special report.